Volume 9, Number 1 - Space and Missile Defense Command - U.S. ...

Why is this a critical task? Space is clearly a contested
and congested domain. Consider these reports:
• North Korea has detonated a nuclear weapon underground
and is testing missiles that could someday carry nuclear warheads.
Iran says their nuclear ambitions are for peaceful energy
purposes, but they resist inspections to verify their claims.
The electro-magnetic pulse from a nuclear warhead aboard
a missile could disable our satellites along with those of
our allies.
• China disavowed its air force commander Xu Qiliang’s statement
last fall that called the militarization of space a “historical
inevitability.” 3 Yet, China has recently demonstrated
a proven anti-satellite capability.
• Aside from a direct threat from a nation-state, American onorbit
technology faces threats from debris and out-of-control
satellites like the defunct Russian satellite that smashed into
and destroyed an Iridium satellite in February 2009.
• Since the cyber domain links space assets to the ground,
and because that domain inherently relies upon space assets
as a component of Department of Defense networks, we
must acknowledge the threat our systems, networks, and
forces face in this realm. Reports from the Government
Accountability Office, other reports to Congress, and statements
by the commander, U.S. Strategic Command assert that
the country’s commercial, private and government sectors
are constantly under cyber attack and the number of attacks
on our networks continue to grow: from 24,097 attacks in
2007 to 72,065 in 2008. 4 These attacks come “from the least
sophisticated – what I would say the bored teenager – all the
way up to the sophisticated nation-state, with some petty
criminal elements sandwiched in between,” says Gen. Kevin
Chilton, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command. 5
Because of the threats to on-orbit assets and the challenges
facing Army forces in D3SOE, the Chief of Staff of the Army
listed this as one of the Army’s Title 10 Wargame Unified Quest
2010 key tasks: “Determine how to protect or mitigate the loss
of space, cyber, and network-related capabilities.” To that end,
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces
Strategic Command’s Future Warfare Center Wargames Division
launched a series of events to feed into Unified Quest 2010
which will be held at Carlisle Barracks this May. The results of
each of these events will be published in this and future Army
Space Journals. The final reports will lead to a better understanding
of the space dependencies and vulnerabilities of strategic
and tactical warfighters and will identify mitigation strategies
in a denied, degraded, disrupted space operational environment
to ensure delivery of critical enablers.
What follows are preliminary
findings from the first two events.
In December 2009 the USASMDC Future Warfare Center
Wargames Division met with Soldiers assigned to 4th Infantry
Division and 10th Special Forces Group to gain insight into
how warfighters use space. Who better to know how they and
their units are impacted by access, or non-access, to space-based
capabilities than recently returned Soldiers who had been directly
engaged in ground force missions. Not surprisingly, in this
Warfighter Forum these warriors identified satellite communications
and positioning, navigation and timing as their most critical
space-based capabilities along with assured access to space
capabilities. (Read the full report starting at page 34).
The findings from the Warfighter Forum were incorporated
into the most recent event this past February called the Space
Power Seminar Wargame on D3SOE. This seminar brought
together senior FA40s; reps from the intelligence community,
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, and the signal
community; senior advisors; and representatives from industry.
Their task was to understand the Warfighters’ space needs,
dependencies, and vulnerabilities and then identify strategies to
prevent or mitigate the loss of space, Cyber or network-related
capabilities. The findings and recommendations from this will
be rolled into Unified Quest 2010 to be tested and validated.
In his article on the 21st Century Army 6 , the Army Chief
of Staff GEN George W. Casey Jr writes that land forces need
to be versatile, tailorable, networked, and trained and ready for
full spectrum operations. When the Army Chief of Staff talks
about versatility, he is referring to being capable of operating
across the spectrum of conflict. We must ask ourselves whether
our units, be they space, infantry, field artillery, etc, are versatile
enough to go from extensive reliance on space capabilities to
a situation where they must continue to operate in an environment
where space enabled capabilities are severely degraded or
do not exist. I suggest we have a long way to go.
As we wait for the published results of this wargame
series, members of our space community can implement at
least one of the recommendations: train as we expect to fight.
You can prepare your Soldiers, their units, and the ones they
support to operate, survive, and win in a degraded, denied
or disrupted space operational environment. To do this,
Space Operations Officers and Space Enablers must understand
exactly how their units rely on space. This is a critical
task. Map the organization’s use of space. Less battlespace –
more time required to complete mission – more uncertainty –
greater casualties – more fog of war) on your unit’s ability to
accomplish its mission essential tasks. The next step is to determine
for each space system what the primary, alternate, contingency,
and emergency backups, redundancies and pathways are
and to develop solid battle drills using them which will allow
Protecting Space >> page 15
2010 Winter/Spring Edition Army Space Journal 9